John's Other Practice

The story opens with a newly appointed Special Investigator for the International Medical Association, summoned to the Hotel Celt in New York to examine a bizarre new industry: slot‑machine‑style devices that dispense medical diagnoses. These “symptometers” promise answers to everything from appendicitis to pregnancy, charging a quarter and turning a clinical question into a gamble. As the narrator confronts the hotel manager and the frantic crowd of women lining up for advice, he discovers the peculiar world of John Cunningham—a handsome, romantically inclined intern who has built a career of practicing medicine without ever touching a patient.

The investigation quickly spirals into a comic clash of bureaucracy, ethics, and outsized ambition, as the protagonist wrestles with regulations that treat these machines as both vending equipment and illegal medical tools. Meanwhile, Cunningham’s tangled personal history—marriage, divorce, financial ruin, and a desperate quest to restore his family fortune through poetry‑mixed potions—simmers in the background, promising further entanglements. Listeners are treated to a sharply witty, mid‑century sci‑fi satire that asks: when does a diagnosis become a game, and who really pays the price?